Civil liberties history detailed at libraries

Showcasing stories of the fight for freedom and equality in California from the Gold Rush to the post-9/11 eras, a new exhibition, “Wherever There’s a Fight: A History of Civil Liberties in California,” opened this week at Monterey County Free Libraries’ Marina and Castroville branches.

The traveling exhibition in English (at Marina) and Spanish (at Castroville) offers 13 interpretive panels of photographs and texts that tell the stories of people who fought violations of their civil liberties in California, reflecting the prejudices and political winds of the times.

These include Paul Robeson, who told the House Un-American Activities Committee, “You are the Un-Americans and you ought to be ashamed of yourselves.” Anton Refregier’s colorful murals, targeted for destruction by a 1953 Congressional inquisition but ultimately declared historically protected, depict the true stories of Indians at the missions, anti-Chinese riots, and labor strikes. And in 1939, the Kern County Board of Supervisors banned John Steinbeck’s instant best-seller “Grapes of Wrath,” though 600 readers had already put it on reserve. “Banning books is so utterly hopeless and futile,” said Kern County’s librarian Gretchen Knief about the incident. “Ideas don’t die because a book is forbidden reading.”

“Libraries have always been places where you go to find information on any subject and where you can expect to be served no matter what your background or what you look like,” said MCFL Library Director Jayanti Addleman. “These days when we are hearing of so much concern about individual rights and privacy, this exhibition is a great starting point for thoughtful discussion.”

The free exhibition runs through March 23 in Marina and Castroville, after which it will move to south county.

“Wherever There’s a Fight” is part of California Council for the Humanities’ “Searching for Democracy initiative,” a program designed to examine the meaning of democracy today.

The exhibition is based on the book “Wherever There’s a Fight: How Runaway Slaves, Suffragists, Immigrants, Strikers, and Poets Shaped Civil Liberties in California,” by Elaine Elinson and Stan Yogi (2009).